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Friday, January 30, 2015

2018 FIFA World Cup seeding (CAF): Official format and simulations

CAF have announced some details regarding the qualification format for the 2018 World Cup.

 The competing teams will have to go through three preliminary rounds in order to bring the number of teams down to 20 so as to be able to constitute five (5) groups of four teams, where the first from each group will qualifier for the World Cup.

The preliminaries of the FIFA World Cup shall begin during the two FIFA dates in October 2015, given that the draws shall take place on 25 July 2015 at Saint-Petersburg in Russia.



As usual with competition/pot sims, I used ClubElo's expected goals formula. Games up to and including 29 January 2015 + Iraq vs. UAE 2 - 3

Very important: this is based on the fixtures list from FIFA.com. If teams schedule other friendlies things will look different.  

As there are no details regarding the preliminary rounds, here are the average points for the African teams in July 2015.


1 Algeria 1023.8
2 Ghana 988.64
3 Tunisia 914.16
4 Côte d'Ivoire 851.97
5 Senegal 813
6 Cameroon 769
7 Guinea 721.55
8 Congo 688.68
9 Mali 657
10 Nigeria 630
11 Equatorial Guinea 621.92
12 South Africa 615
13 Congo DR 610.7
14 Cape Verde Islands 602
15 Gabon 597
16 Egypt 559
17 Zambia 543
18 Burkina Faso 515
19 Uganda 480
20 Togo 459
21 Mozambique 433
22 Angola 403
23 Morocco 375.27
24 Malawi 372
25 Rwanda 347
26 Sierra Leone 328
27 Ethiopia 304
28 Niger 290
29 Sudan 290
30 Botswana 282
31 Benin 282
32 Lesotho 255
33 Tanzania 250
34 Libya 233
35 Kenya 208
36 Zimbabwe 180
37 Burundi 179
38 Namibia 144
39 Guinea-Bissau 131
40 Liberia 126
41 Central African Republic 111
42 Mauritania 108
43 Chad 100
44 Madagascar 83
45 Swaziland 80
46 Gambia 67
47 Seychelles 60
48 Sao Tome e Principe 48
49 Comoros 37
50 Mauritius 34
51 South Sudan 24
52 Eritrea 8
53 Somalia 6
54 Djibouti 4

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Christian, husband, father x 3, programmer, Romanian. Started the blog in March 2007. Quit in April 2018. You can find me on LinkedIn.

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8 comments:

  1. HosamJanuary 31, 2015 at 6:03 PM

    3 preliminary rounds including the 5 groups stage?
    or 3 rounds and the another 5 group stage?
    +
    the July draw will made for which of the rounds?
    +
    what is the format of the 2nd preliminary round?
    is it will be 10 groups of 40 teams ( 20 teams will qualify to the last round)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownNovember 18, 2015 at 9:52 AM

      3 rounds including the group stages (round 3)... round 1.... round 2 is knockouts. 20 teams will qualify for round 3 making 5 groups of 4

      Delete
  2. EdFebruary 2, 2015 at 11:01 AM

    I read the CAF-statement as: 3 preliminary rounds and then the final round with 5 groups of 4 teams.
    The July-draw concerns all preliminary rounds as the first preliminaries are scheduled for October 2015. No other info is given regarding the format of each preliminary round.
    For WC2014 it was a brutal qualifying format: first stage 12 play-offs, second stage 10 groups of 4 teams with only the winner progressing to stage 3: 5 play-offs with the winners qualifying for the WC14.
    This time CAF apparently chooses another format as it is stated that 5 group winners will qualify for WC18. I think that they will use 3 rounds of home-and-away play-offs to bring the number of participants down to a 20-team group stage, as was the case with the AFCON15-qualifiers. But that's no more than my educated guess.

    ReplyDelete
  3. HosamFebruary 2, 2015 at 4:32 PM

    I think it will be :

    1st round : home -and - away play-offs
    2nd round : group stage of 40 teams ( 10 groups)
    in order to bring the teams number to 20 teams
    3rd round : group stage of 20 teams( 5 groups)

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownFebruary 3, 2015 at 8:23 PM

    When are FIFA expected to announce the allocation for each confederation for Russia 2018?

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownFebruary 14, 2015 at 1:26 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownFebruary 16, 2015 at 1:12 AM

    Previously, they've announced the allocation in March 2011, so maybe next month...

    ReplyDelete
  7. EdFebruary 23, 2015 at 2:06 PM

    The predicted July 2015 ranking for the CAF WC18 qualifying draw based on ELO-predictions for the match results of all scheduled matches on FIFA.com. For African countries there are only friendlies scheduled between March and July.

    Ghana (19)
    Cote d'Ivoire (20)
    Algeria (21)
    Tunisia (26)
    Senegal (30)
    Cameroon (34)
    Equatorial Guinea (38)
    Guinea (43)
    Mali (44)
    Congo (46)
    Nigeria (54)
    South Africa (55)
    Gabon (58)
    Congo DR (59)
    Cape Verde Islands (61)
    Egypt (62)
    Zambia (64)
    Burkina Faso (66)
    Uganda (70)
    Togo (73)
    Mozambique (78)
    Angola (83)
    Malawi (89)
    Morocco (91)
    Rwanda (94)
    Sierra Leone (97)
    Ethiopia (104)
    Sudan (110)
    Niger (110)
    Benin (113)
    Botswana (113)
    Lesotho (116)
    tanzania (117)
    Libya (121)
    Kenya (126)
    Zimbabwe (133)
    Burundi (136)
    Namibia (146)
    Guinea-Bissau (152)
    Liberia (157)
    Central African Republic (164)
    Mauritania (165)
    Chad (169)
    Madagascar (174)
    Swaziland (175)
    Gambia (178)
    Seychelles (181)
    Sao Tome e Principe (184)
    Comoros (188)
    Mauritius (189)
    South Sudan (191)
    Eritrea (202)
    Somalia (203)
    Djibouti (206)

    ReplyDelete